GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that the EB/Gamestop merger is pending a $950 million investment Gamestop is seeking to close the deal. From the article: "GameStop has announced the sale of USD 950 million in notes to investors, which the company will repay in six or seven years, with interest, in a move aimed at financing the firm's forthcoming merger with Electronics Boutique. The company has offered the sale of USD 650 million in Senior Notes priced at 98.688 percent with an 8 percent fixed rate of interest, and USD 300 million in full priced Senior Floating Rate Notes which will bear interest at the London Inter Bank Offering Rate of 3.875 percent."

MTV Games, in a report on the Katamari sequel, reports that game creator Keita Takahashi wasn't slightly interested in making a sequel. From the article: "Suddenly celebrated for his originality, Takahashi would soon have to tackle the possibly contradictory idea of doing a sequel. He told his bosses at Namco several times that he wouldn't do one. 'But it came to a point where the company was willing to release a sequel without me,' he said. He discovered that the company's planned sequel seemed more like a re-release, primarily swapping Christmas graphics into the original game. 'That went against everything I wanted to do with Katamari,' he said. So he agreed to get involved. "

IGN is showing off some interesting GunCon concepts that would slot together with the remote controller the Revolution is going to use. From the article: "Some mock-ups of a pistol-and-pointer combo have already hit the Web. But what about a shotgun-style attachment perfectly suited for dual-handed comfort? Nintendo itself could make use of the device by packaging it with an old classic that is long overdue for a Revolution remake. Of course, we're referring to the beloved Duck Hunt, which came to popularity on the Nintendo Entertainment System in the late 80s."

Gamasutra is running an article about the Massively Multiplayer Game Eve Online. Information from senior producer Nathan Richardsson gives a look into the development of the largest concurrent MMO on the market. From the article: "Power to the players. Nothing compares to a player that is enabled to affect the universe. We create tools for players to create content. For example, a massive alliance of corporations - our versions of guilds - with real, legendary players, leading them, controlling large areas of space and building up infrastructure is truly awesome content. We can never create that, but we can create the environment and tools enabling to happen. We're also very iterative in our work and keep continuous feedback cycles on the features we do, then regularly improve them based on that feedback. The community is an incredible source for how to improve the game and what they do within the game gives us constant inspiration for what we should implement next. Being so open-ended means the players do what they want and we try to keep up and add support and tools to take emerging behavior further. Embrace and evolve are the keywords here."

This year is the five year anniversary of the venerable Baldur's Gate II, and Gamebanshee is celebrating with a series of walkthroughs, an interview, and game art displays. From the interview with co-lead designers James Ohlen and Kevin Martens: "I have two primary memories burned into my mind from the Baldurs Gate days. The first memory is the horror of crunch time. Shadows of Amn was an enormous game with so many plots, characters, items, spells, places, etc., that it took a lot of work and passion to get that beast out the door. That leads to the second memory: creative fulfillment. I think the stars aligned for Baldurs Gate II in a way that they probably wont again. We had a finished engine that allowed us to focus on content rather than basic functionality. We had enough staff familiar with the engine that we could iterate content very quickly. We shipped it at a good time, shortly before the Christmas shopping season. Our system requirements were low, and a lot of basic machines could run it when they couldn't run the latest 3D marvel. It was a good environment for getting content into a game, as the result has shown."

Edge Online reports that Masahiro Sakurai, designer of the Kirby series of games and the recent DS hit Meteos has launched his own game studio named Sora. In an interview, he talks about the design process behind Meteos. From the article: "It was created by one designer, one graphic artist and one programmer, and took three days. Design documents were written by myself alone and took me three days to finish. When I designed Meteos, we didn't know it would be released on the DS platform. That was decided after we saw the hardware at E3, in May 2004. And at that stage, we didn't have a dev kit or any real hardware information."

The big secret that everyone's been curious about, the Xbox Origen puzzle, has been revealed. From the article: "The Origen Xbox 360 site has counted down, and it appears to be promoting a contest for European gamers to win a trip to an Xbox 360 launch party in the U.S. As for the updated site, it went live at approximately 7:00 AM ET. The tree is now covered with flags from all over Europe instead of fruit, as well as a link to xbox360.com in the lower left-hand corner. A Harry Potter movie-soundtrack-like toy piano is also playing a loop of a short musical progression in the background. Rolling over clickable objects on the tree produces a disappearing fairy-dust-like effect which follows the cursor."

Next Generation is running an article entitled Gaming's Digital Future, discussing the reality that digital downloads are likely to be commonplace in the industry in the near future. Today they've polled publishers for their opinions, with developer and distributor opinions later in the week. From the article: "While the digital distribution of music took that industry by surprise, and Hollywood is still figuring out the best way to utilize digital distribution for movies; the videogame industry has embraced digital distribution as a new revenue stream for videogames new and old, at least on the PC side of the games business."

MJXG writes "Gamespot has posted an article related to the adver-teasement Microsoft has set up at Origenxbox360.com. It seems that the counter will be hitting zero in less than 12 hours. It is speculated that once the zero-hour is reached, the site will open up with puzzles and riddles which may give away information or even prizes pertaining to the 360. Also from an article on xbox.ign.com, "In a somewhat shocking discovery, there is a Latin message written into one of the tree's lower branches. To view the message, zoom in a few times on the furthest left root near the bottom of the tree. The message reads 'in hoc spatio arbor noster floruit, fecundus pomis Elysii ignoti, quo in loco ludent electi, ab Originis angelis circumdati'. We consulted the IGN annals of ultimate intelligence and wisdom and came up with the following rough translation: 'In this place may our fertile tree bloom with fruits in strange elysium, where in the place of the chosen, angels surround the origin'." Something big is about to happen."

TecnaDigit writes "The Games for Health Conference, is being hosted this month by the Serious Games Initiative at the Maryland School of Medicine. The writers at GamEnlight have posted an editorial about the Serious Games organization. The organization has an uphill battle facing them, with the way games are so readily scorned these days. But they recognize the potential for this area as well, and work with honest dedication to develop games for a better, more knowledgeable future. The article also has an insightful look at how the uses of technology and gaming changes as we become older."

Sid Meier is a household name in gaming. Titles he's designed, such as Railroad Tycoon, Pirates!, and Civilization, are pillars in the history of PC gaming. This year the fourth chapter in the Civilization series of games is being released, and we have a great opportunity. Today we're asking for questions about design and philosophy to pass on to Mr. Meier. On Wednesday, we'll be asking for questions to give to the Civilization IV development team. That day you'll have the chance to ask technical questions about the moddability and design concepts that went into the game. For today, here's your opportunity to put questions to one of the most respected game designers in the industry. Keep them topical, and one question per post please. We'll pass on the ten best questions, his responses will go up as soon as we get them back.

This past weekend Shigeru Miyamoto visited Nintendo World in New York City. Hundreds of people stood in line for hours to get a few moments with the man behind some of Nintendo's most well known games. The Game Chair has a look at what it felt like to be on the ground at the event, while Joystiq has a more information based writeup of the event. From Joystiq's post: "While there, we learned that Miyamoto is left-handed. That had to have been tough for him growing up, because in Japanese culture left-handedness is loaded with negative meaning and experiences. It's considered rude to hold your chopsticks in your left hand in Japan and China, for instance. It's also a helluva lot more difficult to write classic kanji with the left hand. Top calligraphers are never left-handed, as brush strokes look wrong when pushed across a page rather than pulled across the page with the right hand. It's also considered a sure sign of creativity and artistry, according to some."

Doomstalk writes "PSP news site PSP Updates is reporting that a buffer overflow flaw has been found in PSP firmware v2.0's photo viewer. So far it's only been used to corrupt the menu display, but it holds great promise for running homebrew code on upgraded PSPs." From the article: "Thanks to the unknown author(s) for this great starting point to have homebrew on 2.0, all that is needed are coders to extend this knowledge for full homebrew usage on the v2.0 firmware. We cannot say when someone will step up to the plate and write the code for users to run homebrew on a 2.0 using this exploit, but we will definitely have our ears (and email boxes) open and be sure to let you know as soon as we do."

1up.com has a piece on the making of Shadow of the Colossus, the sequel to Ico (arguably one of the first innovative titles for the PS2). From the article: "In the works for nearly four years now, Shadow of the Colossus is clearly the result of different thinking. While Western development teams try to one-up each other in terms of how big their guns are, how interactive their environments can be, how urban their attitude is, and how much their X-treme soundtracks rock, Ueda's studio is cutting its game from an entirely different cloth. One look at Shadow and you'll realize that this game carries the DNA of Ico, from its sun-soaked environments to its minimal cast of characters to its austere "level" design. But while the majority of Ico's discovery and puzzle-solving elements were confined within the walls of a finite space (in this instance, a castle), Shadow of the Colossus, shall we say, branches out."

Gamecloud has a piece on the moddability of Civilization IV. The article goes into detail about the numerous levels at which content creators can change the game of Civilization. From the article: "The next level offers Python and XML support, letting modders with more experience manipulate the game world and everything in it. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) files can be edited in standard text editors or in special XML file editors that have ease-of-use features like a grid view. Editing these files will allow players to tweak simple game rules and change or add content. For instance, they can add new unit or building types, change the cost of wonders, or add new civilizations." This is a more detailed look at a topic we've discussed before. Gamespot has a preview of the upcoming title, as well.

Heartless writes "If you aren't an Evercrack addict or a World of Warcraft fanatic then chances are you may just be interested in some of these updates for non-mainstream MMORPGs. First off we have Pirates of the Burning Sea accepting beta applications. Darkfall Online has a leaked gameplay video that they are not stopping and has also started taking clan applications for their beta test. Horizons has announced a Military appreciation program. Codemasters has announced that RF Online will make a North American debut. Finally we have Irth Online freshly into its Beta 3 semi-open beta phase with its first review up at Gamergod.com. Keep an eye out on these titles as they further advance the smaller MMORPG market." Some other (more mainstream) games have updates as well, with GamerGod offering up a review of the new EQ2 expansion, and Next Generation interviewing a DDO developer.

JoaoPinheiro writes "In an unexpected change from the big three companies slagging each other off, Microsoft's Peter Moore gives kudos to Nintendo's new controller! Xbox VP Peter Moore has said he wanted 'to give kudos [to] Nintendo for its attempt at innovation with the new controller.' Whether the word attempt is meant to hint at some slight sarcasm is debatable, though the overall message was positive. Moore commented the new device would 'bring people in that, as Iwata-san said, are either lapsed gamers or gamers that are intimidated by the complexity of the controller.' He referenced Microsoft's E3 speech, where it was said the company wanted a billion consumers touched by the gaming industry next generation. 'That was an industry message. Certainly, we can see Nintendo rallying to that cry and reiterating what Robbie said on May 16th; I heard the same words come from Iwata-san of Nintendo yesterday.'"

-pms-mistletoe writes "Hot on the heels of World of Warcraft's breaking the 4 million subscriber mark, Guild Wars has also reached a big milestone with over 1 million users. The differences and similarities between the two games are marked, especially given Guild Wars' lack of traditional sharding and no monthly fee. Are these large numbers of players signals that the popularity of MMORPGs is growing? Or are the same people playing both games?"

Hardcore gaming gets a lot of press attention for the intense graphics and the meaningless violence. Despite this, there are millions of gamers who enjoy their entertainment in a more casual vein. One of the champs of the casual PC market is Maxis behemoth The Sims 2. The sequel to the original, much expanded, Sims is now working its way through a series of content additions of its own. The most recent expansion for Sims 2 is "Nightlife". This out-and-about addition incorporates much of the "Hot Date" material from the original game, with a generous helping of extras. Read on for my impressions of the latest attempt by Maxis to improve your virtual person's social life.

Gamespot is running an article reporting that Activision's Robert Kotick believes that current generation games will drop in price due to the arrival of next-gen consoles. From the article: "Unfortunately for current-generation holdouts, Kotick also said that publishers will quickly shift their development efforts away from today's consoles, which has been the case in the past, when the introduction of the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube games saw PlayStation and Nintendo 64 development plummet." Meanwhile, the retail chain EBGames has announced that it has presold it's allotment of 360 consoles. From the article: "We are currently sold out of our popular Xbox 360 bundles ... Check back frequently for more opportunities to pre-order an Xbox 360."